Strong, elongate work lines, such as ropes, cords, and the like, are commonly used for work purposes in a wide range of applications in various industries and work environments, including tree service industry, rigging, and rescue. Work ropes are often used in the tree service industry for moving tree servicers into areas of trees, for moving saws and tools into upper portions of trees, and for holding branches being removed from trees. Riggers use ropes to pass tools and equipment from one location to another. Search and rescue operations use ropes to pull persons to safety, for example, from a car in a flooded stream. These are but a few examples of situations requiring the use of work ropes, and further illustrate the need to place work ropes in to difficult-to-reach spaces.
The tree service industry particularly requires the placing of lines into remote areas of trees that are difficult-to-reach. The problems faced by persons in this industry for placing lines into remote areas have similarities with the placing of lines into difficult-to-reach spaces in other industrial applications. Generally, the tree service industry provides maintenance and control services of trees, including pruning of branches, removal of nuisance and dead branches, and removal of trees. Often this work requires workers to be located in the upper portions of trees in order to reach the branches to be cut away. For safety and handling purposes, work ropes (referred to herein as lines), are secured to the tree. Workers connect to the lines through repelling devices known as carabineer. The workers thereby are suspended and can swing from one part of the tree to another or move vertically on the line to reach other parts of the tree. Lines secured to the upper portions of trees also are used to support branches cut from the tree. These lines permit the cut branches to be lowered in a controlled manner to the ground.
Gaining access to upper portions of trees for the purpose of securing lines for tree workers and supporting branches is difficult and dangerous work. Typically, a tree climber free-climbs the trunk and branches to the upper portion of the tree. By this is meant that the tree climber is not secured with a safety line to hold the tree climber in the event of a fall. Such work is dangerous. The tree climber typically carries at least the end of a rope that feeds from a coil on the ground. The tree climber secures an end portion thereof to the upper portion of the tree. The tree climber and other workers may then repel to and from the tree on the line for placing other lines as necessary and for performing work on the tree.
Once a climber has reached an upper portion of a tree, other lines can be pulled into the tree for use in reaching other parts of the tree, for pulling equipment such as saws into the tree, and for restraining branches being cut from the tree. The ends of the lines are knotted together, or a line to be pulled is knotted at its end to an intermediate portion of a line already in the tree. The second line is then pulled into the tree by the climber pulling on the first line. However, the knots sometimes snag and catch on branches in the tree. Efforts to release the line caught by the branches include loopingly tossing the line outwardly from the branches, pulling the line back to the ground, or by the climber moving through the tree to the snag and releasing it. These efforts are not only time-consuming, but incur some risk of injury as the climber works to release the line.
While ladders may be used to provide initial access into trees, ladders are also dangerous to use due to balance and positioning problems. Ladders also have a limited height. Once the work in the tree is completed, the various lines in the tree must be unsecured from the tree, and the tree climber then repels from the tree to reach the ground.
In other work, ropes are useful tools. During search and rescue operations, rescuers may need to place a rope into a place which is difficult-to-reach, such as into a car in a swollen stream. Also, it may be difficult to throw a line or rope to a boat disabled in rough waters. Riggers may place ropes between buildings to pass tools and materials between work sites. While ropes provide useful tools, the placing of the ropes into these positions for use is often difficult, time-consuming, and impractical.
A device for placing lines into trees was evaluated. It was found that structural features of the device caused the device to experience problems with the reliability of operation in placing lines into remote areas of tall trees. Consequently, repeat efforts were required in order to successfully place a pull line into a tree. Specifically, the device has a slingshot mounted to a tubular handle of a conventional fishing rod to which a spool of fishing line is attached. A significantly elongate pole extended longitudinally from the handle to which the slingshot was mounted. The pole extended to a distal end remote from the spool and terminated in a loop through which the fishing line extended. A weight is connected to the free end of the fishing line. The weight was fired by the slingshot towards the difficult-to-reach area of a tree. In this device however the fishing line would frequently become enwrapped and entangled at the distal end portion of the elongated pole during the initial flight of the line as induced by the slingshot, and thus, repeat firings of the weight and line were required to position a line into the difficult-to-reach area. Once the fishing line was positioned into the remote upper portions of trees, the problem then become placing the work line into the tree. Knots connecting the fishing line and the work line often became caught on branches in the upper portion of the trees. Dislodging the knot was difficult from the ground. This would necessarily delay the tree service work and sometimes required free climbing the tree to dislodge the knot.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for an improved apparatus for placing work lines into spaces which are normally difficult-to-reach for the purpose of placing work lines. It is to the provision of such that the present invention is directed.